


Scar Tissue

by sandswoman



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Excessive Drinking, Gen, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:49:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26993947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandswoman/pseuds/sandswoman
Summary: Couriers and caravaneers alike seem to make livings out of carrying baggage.A one-shot, standalone companion piece toIssue #7ofIt Keeps Right on a-Hurtin'.IKROAH is originally posted on Tumblrwith comic transcripts, original pencils, and production notes, by@fallout-lou-begas.
Relationships: Rose of Sharon Cassidy & Female Courier, Rose of Sharon Cassidy & Original Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	Scar Tissue

If Agnes strained her ears, it was almost as if the whine of the buzzsaw still reverberated through the small room, piercing and tinny. There was no other sound in the shelter basement, anyway, no other living thing besides herself, and now she kept silent. She watched, from her position splayed against the far wall, until the blade at the end of the robot’s tentacular leg gradually came to a complete stop, thrust into the air as it was by its metal corpse curling in on itself like a dead spider. Her wide eyes lowered from the upheld saw to the robot’s dented chassis, the distorted ghost of her own reflection returning her gaze in the crimson-smeared steel. Hot blood dripped down her face. It oozed between her fingers and over her brow; she pressed her hand further into the tattered flaps of her cheek to keep it together, and gripped the hammer in her other hand even tighter until her knuckles pearled. She didn’t blink.

She felt like if she moved even a little bit, or made even the slightest sound, the buzzsaw would scream to life again and the mangled robot would reanimate in front of her. The musty, pre-war first aid kit on the wall shelf would—no, _could_ , there wasn’t a guarantee—contain enough supplies to keep her alive until she dragged herself back home, to a doctor, to her mother, but it was right behind the robot; it guarded it even in such a wrecked state. She _had_ to make sure that it was dead and destroyed, she _had_ to make sure that she had killed it or it would get her when she tried for the kit, but her fear was racing her blood loss. She could only wait so long.

As she waited, the silence was interrupted by the rhythmic dripping of her own blood onto the floor.

Agnes was thirteen years old.

* * *

Major Knight had been staring into space until a quiet unlatching sound snapped him back to attention, and he turned raptly towards the headquarters office door, which had come ajar. A black gloved hand slipped between the door and its frame, prying it open just enough to let its owner squeeze through. The door swung back closed just before she was in, pinching the duffel bag that was slung over her shoulder, and she swore quietly under her breath before yanking it out of the frame and finally entering. Most people just barged in because they were looking for the barracks next door, Knight noted, and he was almost grateful that whoever this was hadn’t blown another gust of hot desert air into the office. Speaking of, it was his job to _find out_ whoever this was.

“Excuse me, would you mind stepping up and signing in?” The visitor’s head lifted, returning Knight's gaze from behind a pair of cracked sunglasses, then shifted to look behind him, past his side, down the hall, back and forth, then back to him before stepping forward. Usually, office guests were just cranky or drunk: nervous was a new one. In this line of work, Knight liked novelty—but nervous could also mean suspicious. On the one hand, the guest hardly struck Knight as a troublemaker, or God forbid a spy from the Legion or someplace; no, Knight thought, he was _far_ too conspicuous. If the NCR ever put out a bulletin for someone like this—tall, thirties or forties, hot pink mohawk, eyepatch, scars all over the left side of the face, they’d find him in a day, or hell, mere hours. On the other hand, what _really_ had Knight worried was the duster, belts, and duffel bag: lots of pockets and pouches meant lots of compartments to sneak supplies in, or out. His eyes narrowed and he spoke again. “Caravan, citizen, pilgrim, or…?”

“Courier,” she replied, “I’m a courier with the Mojave Express.” Her voice was low and scratchy—that and the stained teeth gave away that she smoked—but it had a softness to it, like a loud stage whisper.

“Thank you, sir. Name?”

The courier frowned, but replied quickly. “Agnes Sands. _Agnes._ ”

“ _Oh_ . Thank you.” Neutral surprise punctured the dispassion of Knight’s routine as he recognized his mistake, but he quickly carried on with his eyes turned down towards the sign-in clipboard. A soft _skrit-skritching_ murmured between him and Agnes as he pencilled in the various form fields. “And you’d said you’re from the Mojave Express...do you have any weapons on your person, ma’am?”

“Yes. A pistol in my hip holster, and there’s a submachine gun in my bag. Disassembled.”

“What caliber are these weapons?”

“They’re both ten miillimeter. Why?”

“We've had problems with lost and stolen munitions. If we were to lose some ten millimeter ammo while you're here, you’d be on the list of people we’d ask about it.”

Agnes’ head nodded slightly in recognition. Good to ask. “Right. Anything else?”

Knight smiled politely. “Only the big one. State your business, please.”

“Like I said, I’m a courier. I actually have something for someone, the head of Cassidy caravans. I thought they’d be in this office?”

Now _that_ elicited a snort from Major Knight, though he suppressed it as much as he could. “No, sorry, not here. I guarantee that she’d be at the barracks, though. If she’s not at the bar...then I guess we’ll report her as missing.” Knight looked up at Agnes for a reaction; she merely smiled back humorlessly. “The barracks are next door, and you’re all set, by the way. Just a signature here.”

Knight offered the clipboard and pencil to Agnes, and as she grabbed them, he noticed the Pip-Boy on her arm for the first time, colored the same vibrant pink as her hair. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen one outside of the Republic core—another reason why she probably wouldn’t do anything to make herself wanted, he hoped to himself. She returned the clipboard and muttered a quiet thank-you before turning towards the office door, exiting as carefully as she had entered.

* * *

Agnes didn’t like to be noticed. She had made habits out of opening doors slowly, carefully and quietly, if only because the casual glance of an entire room full of people in her direction as she entered was an even worse feeling than getting shot.

Well. _Almost_ worse than getting shot. She knew how that felt, now, too.

Still, she’d avoided attention as best as she could all her life. Her childhood memories didn’t reach much farther back than the death of her father—a casualty of a bad, clumsy, accidental fall during a caravaneering expedition—and subsequently becoming an apprentice of her mother at her medical practice in One Pine, New California. Life was fragile, her mother had explained as best as she could, there was no guarantee that either of them would be around to teach or learn these things in the future. The constant exclamations of disbelief from patient after patient about Julia Sands’ “kid nurse” or being waited on “by a child” made Agnes feel hopelessly out of place, and maybe they were right to be alarmed, if not outright concerned. Julia was never a particularly soft woman, after all, and she only hardened more as a widow. So Agnes hid herself: she entered and exited quietly, tried not to be seen, tried not to make herself obvious or make mistakes or make herself known. She handed her mother her tools without comment, she avoided eye contact with patients while providing care, and she tried not to ask a lot of questions or raise any complaints, and so it went for years as she picked up her mother’s trade. Julia rarely offered praise, but any parent would have been proud of Agnes’ progress in such a difficult line of work at such a young age. Agnes had assured herself of this many times over, at least.

At twelve years old, Agnes was performing minor surgeries alone: first aid, pulling teeth, draining skin abscesses, and even debridements of small enough wounds. She was also burnt out, worn by her mother’s domineering as both a teacher and a mother. Despite her pride in her work, Agnes was worked to the bone; she had no friends, no real hobbies, no life of her own outside of her mother's shadow. It was serendipitous, then, albeit surprising and significantly stressful, that Julia left Agnes at the clinic late one night to attend to a home birth elsewhere in One Pine, and while she was gone a man had stumbled through the door clutching his side, covered in blood.

 _I’m a visiting trader_ , he’d said even though all of his bags were empty and he didn’t mention being robbed, _and I’ve been shot by someone in town,_ which Agnes surmised must have been true. Agnes had barely done anything by herself before that was more complex than scraping dead flesh from burned fingers, but her mother had always insisted every chance she got that no patient was to be turned away, _ever._ Although Julia was on the other side of town, her words and her stony, furrowed glare were clear enough in Agnes' mind that she felt present at the clinic nonetheless, and Agnes carried on as if she was: she took the bleeding man to the surgical cot, extracted the bullet, and cleaned and closed the wound with steady, careful hands. Her mother's voice guided her like a ghost at every step, the voice of all that she already knew how to do.

The man got up as soon as he could—Agnes told him that he would tear his stitches but he ignored her—and said he couldn’t pay. He grabbed his bloodied coat and retrieved a thin leather clasp from its pocket, placing it in her hands. _I’m not taking my chances with this anymore,_ he’d said, _but with your nimble fingers, kid, this might pay for itself before you know it_ , and then he was hobbling out of the clinic without ever explaining so much as his name.

Agnes cleaned the clinic and kept the entire night—the bleeding man, performing her first major surgery, and especially the leather clasp she'd been paid with—a secret from her mother. She’d soon find out that the small, thin metal tools in the clasp comprised a set of lockpicking equipment, and the clasp contained a small, handwritten booklet on the craft. She’d come to recognize the tools in the set as picks, hooks, rakes, extractors, and wrenches, and how to use them. The bleeding man was right, she _did_ have “nimble fingers” and took to it quickly. Agnes locked and picked the clinic doors repeatedly for practice, and once she could do it with her eyes closed, she began picking various locks that were around town, including homes and stores. She wasn’t a thief, she never broke in or stole anything. Each lock was simply its own challenge that she had for _herself_ for the first time _._ The soft clicking sound of tumblers shifting and metal tickling metal was soothing; these were her instruments and this was their music. Gradually, she found herself leaving the clinic, and leaving One Pine, more and more often in search of locks on the older, uninhabited buildings on the edge of the settlement, and even the pre-war hospital near the highway. Eventually, each of these locks yielded to her, and she relished the feeling of exploration and mystery that was inherent to these old world ruins as much as she did the independence that this hobby—this _skill—_ afforded her.

There was only one structure that remained exceptionally, tantalizingly stubborn to her during this year, and it was the last challenge in One Pine that she had yet to conquer: near the skeletal remains of a pre-war cabin on the north side of town, there was a large, half-buried block of concrete nestled between two hills. There, Agnes knew, a series of locks secured, and had secured for nearly two hundred years straight, the entrance to an undisturbed and unexplored single-family subterranean bomb shelter.

* * *

Agnes sneaked into the Mojave Outpost barracks just as she had into the headquarters office, and let the door quietly latch closed behind her. Her eyes instinctively scanned the room, checking to see if anyone was already scrutinizing her just for walking in, or if she’d successfully remained a bystander. She saw two NCR troopers slouching at the far end of the U-shaped bar, shrugging off a long and boring patrol, and caught a glimpse of dry goods storage and the troop bunks through a hallway to the left. A haggard redhead with her head down was seated at the closer corner of the bar, lost in a half-empty bottle of whiskey, and the only other patron was a petite, pale woman in an all-black hat and coat, green eyes half-opened and turned back towards Agnes. She must have been talking to the bartender, a tall and wiry woman in a cropped outfit who spoke up to interrupt Agnes’ survey.

“Hey, never seen you around before.” She paused, cocking her head curiously. It was a series of expressions Agnes had grown uncomfortably familiar with over time: shock, fascination, pity, suppressed guilt, and a polite smile as she looked over her face for the first time, scrutinizing, inferring. “I think I’d know, too, given the hair. Anything I can do for you, pinky?”

“My name is Agnes, thanks.” She shut down the nickname before it _became_ a nickname, though it came out more rude and harsh than she had intended, and Lacey’s innocent smile cracked into a wince. The guilt was immediate, and Agnes quickly softened her voice. “But yes, Lacey. I’m looking for the owner of Cassidy Caravans. Is she here?”

“Oh, Cass? You bet. She’s my best customer.” Lacey’s smile returned, though more of a smirk this time, as she stuck her thumb out towards the corner of the bar—of course it’s the redhead, Agnes thought. “I’d ask if you wanted any drinks, but you might get some kind of contact drunk just dealing with her.”

“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Agnes said, giving a slight waving gesture as a silent thank-you before settling in the seat next to Cass. 

It’d been a long, hot walk from Primm and sitting in this crusty barstool was the first time she’d really been off her feet all day. She suddenly remembered something her father used to say while he was out with the caravans: after a long day on the road with aches in his calves and feet, he’d say his “dogs were barking.” She savored the memory for a moment—it wasn’t often she remembered Arthur Sands, since there wasn’t much for her to remember—before remembering the _living_ caravaneer next to her that she had a letter for. Cass still seemed stuck in a stupor, not even registering that someone had taken the seat next to her. Agnes reached into her coat and withdrew her cigarettes and lighter—a quick glance at Lacey, who gave her a nod, confirmed that the bar was smoking—and pulled out a single cigarette, lighting it quickly and stashing everything else back in her pockets. She leaned back, inhaling and exhaling deeply.

“Whddywn.” Agnes looked over at Cass, detecting a quiet grunt from beneath her rattan hat. With a weary groan, Cass picked herself up, stretching out her shoulders, neck, and jaw. Her eyes were sunken deep and her cheeks were so flushed that Agnes could only barely make out the sea of freckles on her. A concerned, awkward smile emerged on Agnes' face. Man, she looks like shit, she thought, and was worried suddenly that the major from the office and Lacey hadn’t been exaggerating about how long and how much she'd been drinking herself into a hole. Finally upright—mostly—Cass repeated herself, a little clearer this time. “What do you want?”

“I’m a courier. You have a letter from Crim-”

“From Crimson fucking Caravan company, yeah, I know. You think you’re so fucking slick, sonder, somber, no, wait... _sauntering_ up to me like this, like you’re the first fucking...fucker that they sent to try to take my fucking...caravan, like there’s any fucking caravan left for them to take, like…” she trailed off, glowering at some speck of stucco on the rear wall of the outpost. “I don’t give a shit about their offer. Look at me.” She swung her head away from the wall and stared fiercely at Agnes, eyes burning a hole through her and close enough to where Agnes could smell the whiskey on her breath. “If they want to take Cassidy Caravans then they can wait until I’m fucking dead, and take the name from my goddamn fucking gravestone.” 

They held their gaze for several seconds, Cass not even blinking despite how barely conscious she seemed to be moments ago. Then, she sighed deeply, returning her attention to the bottle in front of her with an exhausted shudder.

* * *

Bruce Vickers’ hands trembled as he latched the door behind him. The outside locks were secure, and he secretly, desperately hoped that they could resist the heat of a nuclear blast like the advertisement had said they would. Finally, the metal door gave a deep, successful _click_ , but he remained hunched by the wide, foot-deep frame to catch his breath from the sprint across the yard. He’d gathered Linda and Cody as soon as he had heard the sirens—Linda was just about to take a shower, for God’s sake, and if she had already been undressed they might have been too slow or too late—and sent them into the shelter while he grabbed everything vital from the house, like the family photo album. Christ, the sirens were still deafening, even in here. Were the walls too thin? No, no, the advertisement said it’d be fine the way it was. Not everybody could get a spot with Vault-Tec, but there were plenty of affordable options for home bunkers for single families, and with the right supplies you could survive for years, maybe even decades.

Bruce’s knee popped as he got up from the floor, grabbing the duffel bag and trudging deeper inside. The sirens were quieter, now, maybe they were just that loud because he was by the door? He tuned them out, checking over the small room enclosed by solid concrete— _Crete-Core Shelters mean quality, and quality means survival,_ he reassured himself, remembering the jingle—and lit by a single small generator-powered bulb. Long crates of canned food and jugs of water lined the wall, and he knew that somewhere in the survival chest was a filter that’d make his own piss drinkable. His eyes darted to the trapdoor in the corner—yes, there was a latrine—then to the wall shelf. Toolbox, first aid kid, spare parts for the generator, survival guides, and some books and holotapes to pass the time until the all-clear. The gun case was nestled behind the shelf, locked so that Cody couldn’t get to it, and he suddenly felt terrible that he’d never been able to take him to the range, on account of him being so young. He’d need to know how to shoot if the world was really...Bruce felt cold, too, all of a sudden, despite how warm it was outside. Was the shelter insulated properly? It didn’t matter, the generator could provide heat, he thought, and surely they’d be able to exit before winter. His eyes scanned the room one more time before settling on his family, and finally, he gave a relaxed smile. _They’d be okay._ The shelter was stable, and more than anything else, he knew the locks would hold strong. No raving neighbors to share their supplies with, no rabid survivors dragging them into the fallout. He’d done right by his family, and fancy vault or not, they’d found a way to survive.

They were Bruce Vickers, maintenance worker, One Pine school district, California; his beloved wife, Linda, office manager of the One Pine recreation department; his darling child, Cody, honor roll third grader at One Pine elementary; and their ever-so-helpful, dutiful Mr. Handy robot.

* * *

“Are you alright?”

A dozen different questions had sprung to Agnes’ mind during Cass’ slurred tirade—did something happen to Cassidy Caravans, why was Agnes delivering a buy-out offer for a caravan that apparently doesn’t exist anymore, why was Agnes only the latest of several couriers to deliver such an offer—but _that_ had been the question to escape after Cass had buried her head back in her hands, and Agnes had felt the anxious need to say _something._ In response, Cass picked herself back up and stared straight ahead at nothing in particular with a blearily indifferent expression.

“Am I alright?”

“Yeah,” Agnes mumbled, “are you alright?”

Cass released a deep sigh. “The fuck is that supposed to mean, do you _think_ I’m alright?”

“No, I don’t, and that’s why I asked.” Cass’s brow furrowed and Agnes immediately turned away to dodge an incoming look, but she slowly leaned over to the courier, pursuing eye contact like a shark on a blood trail, bringing her face close to Agnes’ own again. She loomed in her periphery with the same acidic glare as before. Now, though, Agnes could see tears welling in the corner of her reddened eyes, and when Cass finally spoke again, it was close to whispered.

“Tell me why it matters to you.” It dripped from her whiskey-stained lips slowly, carefully. It sounded like a threat with an implied _or else._

Agnes took an anxious drag from her cigarette, exhaling heavily and clearing her throat.

“Look, I…” she spoke without looking at Cass, still feeling her gaze drilling through the side of her head. “I’m just a courier. You have a letter. I didn’t know anything about your caravan, and if you lost it somehow, I’m sorry.” She risked a furtive glance at Cass; yep, still glaring. Agnes continued. “If you ask me, that’s all the more reason to take whatever caps they’re offering you here and move on.”

"Oh. Move on. Just _move on_ , from my fucking caravan company getting burned to ash on the road.” Agnes turned to face her with a twitch, incredulous, and realized that Cass’ expression hadn’t changed at all when she spoke.

“Burned to ash? By who?”

“That’s the million-cap question, isn’t it, courier.” Cass finally turned away, sleepily fixated on the whiskey bottle again as she moved to pour herself another shot. “Want one?” she asked, and cast an expectant sidelong look at the courier. She sounded physically drained by the attempt at consolation, and frustrated still despite the politeness of the offer.

“No, thanks.”

“Good. Then beat it. Where do you even fucking get off telling me what to _move on_ from, anyway, asshole, as if _you’ve_ ever lost anything like that,” and as if to punctuate her own sentence, Cass lifted the glass to her lips and swallowed the shot. She placed the glass gently back onto the bar like a delicate tool, and a scalding groan came from the back of her throat as the whiskey went down. Agnes, having already given up on the conversation and halfway out of her seat, didn’t see the look of dawning realization and remorse on Cass’ face, or at most must have mistook it for the face of sour liquor. “Wait, asshole. One second. Hang on. Your eye.”

Agnes froze, already a step away from the barstool. Cass continued. “You lost your eye. I’m not an idiot, I noticed, so I’m sorry. That was insensitive, and I wanted to apologize. But _now_ , kindly, fuck off.”

Cass returned to the bottle for a second shot, or at least the second since being offered the buyout. Agnes remained standing still at the edge of the bar, lingering on the threshold of the conversation, deliberating. Idly, her free hand rose to the left side of her face to feel the fabric of her eyepatch. She pressed in slightly and could feel the hollowness behind the patch and her saggy eyelid, and grimaced as she once again remembered that for nearly a month now, she has had a soft, bloody hole in her head where her left eye used to be, and that she’d have this hole for the rest of her life. At least once a day she had a moment like this, where she’d remember it all over again, confront it, but this was the first time since waking up in a bloodstained bed that someone else had triggered the realization for her. Her smoking hand twitched—the doctor in Goodsprings had told her that spasms would be a side effect of the nerve damage—scattering bits of ash from the end of her cigarette onto the bar floor and dragging Agnes out of her current train of thought and into a new one.

“‘I’m sorry, too,” she said, “and I wasn’t trying to be rude either, and I’m still sincerely sorry about your caravan. I only said what I said because I died last month.” When Agnes turned back to Cass, she had stopped cold mid-motion, her shot glass held gingerly only halfway to her mouth. Agnes buried her free hand in her pocket and continued sheepishly. “So if I were you, and I had an offer like that to start over with, I’d take it. That’s all.”

Cass turned her head slowly, like it was a heavy weight, and sent Agnes a narrow, pensive look. Agnes didn’t turn away this time, and for a long quiet minute, she felt Cass studying her—her patch, her scars, her long face—just like Lacey had. Agnes studied Cass the same way. She watched the way she tottered back and forth drunkenly on the barstool, noticed the infrequent and shallow breaths she took that wrinkled her nose, and picked up on her anxious rubbing of the shot glass with her index finger. Cyclops or not, Agnes remained attentive to detail.

“Want to sit back down?” Cass broke the ceasefire with a low voice. “I think I’d like to see the offer after all.”

* * *

The robot hovered impassively in the center of the single-room shelter, the dim orange glow of its camera-eye providing the sole source of light since the generator had long since failed, and the replacement parts had proved useless. The crates that had once contained a stockpile of canned food had been emptied, broken apart, and burned for warmth in the weeks since the bombs fell, leaving a scorch mark on the floor of the shelter near the latrine. The water ran out three days ago and the waste-recycling liquid filter was disgustingly ineffective at its sole purpose. There weren’t enough blankets. There was only one tool that Bruce had used, and that had worked as intended, since he had sealed himself and his family inside their concrete bunker the day the world ended, and while Linda and Cody were asleep, he had taken it out of its case and used it twice.

Admittedly, it was difficult to do. Not emotionally difficult: Bruce had weighed the idea for days in the cold and dark shelter, finally deciding that it was better to spare his wife and child a slow death from deprivation than to let them waste away like he had been, ever since yielding his rations for their sake. He thought about shooting Cody first, so that he wouldn’t have to see his own father kill him, but after mulling it over some more he figured that Linda would be more likely to panic or fight back, and a missed shot would only mean injury or a more painful death in the long run. So, Bruce heated up the last of the beans and let Cody and Linda watch the _Ranger Keplar_ holotape one more time, let them fall asleep on the comfier cot, quietly unlocked the gun case, and shot his wife. When Cody jolted awake from the deafening _bang_ that shook the cramped space, Bruce told him to hold still, and shot him, too.

Now, Bruce was kneeling before the Mr. Handy, bent low in soiled clothes that hung from his shrunken body like drapery. The gun was by his side and his bony, withered hands were clasped in prayer. His interlaced fingers were short and covered in red-brown bandages, and _that_ was what had made the task so _physically_ difficult. Bruce had worn his fingers to the bone scrabbling at the various locks and latches that he had secured on the shelter door months prior, and had made absolutely no progress cracking any of them. They resisted hammers, wrenches, and even the robot’s blowtorch and buzzsaw—of course they would, he had thought to himself one night, those locks had resisted the fucking apocalypse.

Bruce concluded his prayer and looked up at the Mr. Handy, its inscrutable camera-eye tracking his movements. He cleared his throat and spoke hoarsely.

“Listen up. This isn’t a shelter anymore, it’s a grave. And graves are sacred sites.” He looked sidelong at Linda and Cody; their bodies still lay where they’d crumpled onto the floor. He didn’t see the point in rearranging them now, since no one would be able to arrange his own. “If anyone can get into this trap, I’d consider it a miracle, albeit one delivered far too late.”

He swallowed hard, scrutinizing his own sunken reflection in the robot’s camera-eye lens. He looked monstrous.

“This place is not to be disturbed. These bodies are to be protected. And whatever world exists on the other side of that door…” he turned back towards the steel frame, secured by his own locks and tarnished by scratch-marks. He sighed, and spat a thin splotch onto the concrete floor. “Not sure why I’m talking to you, actually, you wouldn’t understand. You’re a robot.”

He gently picked the rifle up in his left hand, which had slightly more flesh on the fingers still, then winced as he gripped the trigger guard. The Mr. Handy’s camera-eye flickered from his hand, to the gun, and then back to its owner’s face inscrutably.

“Your final order is don’t let anybody in. Thanks for the company.”

* * *

Cass set the empty whiskey bottle down on the buyout offer, which had already been stained in spots by spillover, but fortunately not anywhere near her signature at the bottom. The offer came close to one thousand caps, which was several times more than what the sparse remains of Cassidy Caravan’s assets were worth. In essence, she’d just been paid a grand for the rights to her name. There wasn’t anything else to it. Even without her caravan, and even with enough alcohol in her system to down a deathclaw, Rose of Sharon Cassidy was still a living woman, god dammit, but nevertheless the finality of the buyout was as worrisome as it was liberating. Agnes could tell she still felt conflicted as her finger traced the rim of the last glassful of whiskey that the bottle was good for, but they’d since moved onto other topics of conversation, ones blissfully far less pursuant to caravans, caps, and contracts.

“Wow. So _one_ bullet did all that?”

Agnes tapped her left temple. “No, not all. Just the eye and the entry wound. The rest…” now her finger drifted from her temple to her cheek, and the criss-cross of deep scar tissue that traversed it. “The rest are from, uh, before.”

“Shit,” Cass slurred, drawing out the curse like a sigh, “what’d you do? Bring a fist to a knife-fight?”

“Oh,” Agnes stammered. She wasn’t sure how to explain. 

The memory remained as vivid and ready as ever in her mind, of course, of how when she had finally cracked the last lock on the bomb shelter in the north end of One Pine, she had run inside so quickly and excitedly that she hadn’t even noticed the stench of dried death until she was standing in the middle of the room, stumbling over a gnarled, husk-like corpse and kicking a rusted rifle into the pitch black darkness, past the daylight that poured in from the open door, and she had heard it collide with _something_ in the corner with a dull metal-on-metal _thunk_ . She had tensed as a low _hummm_ filled the concrete room, claustrophobically small all of a sudden, and a dim orange light had appeared in the darkness and a _thing_ that she had only seen in old advertisements, a floating monster made of metal and headlights with writhing tentacles like a jellyfish, had flown towards her at an instant speed, and a shrill whine had erupted from the creature when it raised a spinning buzzsaw appendage towards her face and sliced into the flesh, down to the bone. She had screamed as blood spilled over her eyes and made her blind, thrashing in the near-dark of the shelter and tripping over more corpses, more bodies in the room, swatting a metal toolbox to the floor and causing another cacophony on top of the screeching of the buzzsaw that dug into her face again, near her neck, near where her mother had taught her that her _cartoid artery_ was. She had felt something heavy when she fell to the concrete floor in agony, and without thinking she grabbed the claw hammer from the toolbox and swung at the _thing_ and cracked the joint in its leg with a metallic _crash_ , and while it spun off-balance she had thrown herself towards it and beat dent after dent into its chassis and shattered its glass camera-eyes until the lights went out and every single electric organ inside of it had ceased to function. She had crawled away to the far wall in searing pain, one hand gripping the hammer and the other pressing deeply into the loose flaps of her face, waiting until the _thing_ was certainly destroyed before limping to the far side of the shelter, prying half-rotted gauze from the first-aid kit against the wall, then digging again into the spilled toolbox for duct tape to hold her face together when the gauze ran out. She had practically crawled back home, to the clinic, and her mother had shrieked with unforgettable terror at the near-death state of her child, barely even recognizing her at first beneath the blood, bandages, and improvised adhesive. She was still holding the hammer. She didn’t let go of it for hours.

_What’d you do? Bring a fist to a knife-fight?_

“Yeah,” Agnes said distantly. “It was something like that.”

Cass scoffed. “What a fucker. At least you’ve still got your good side.”

“Huh,” Agnes scoffed back. “What good side? It’s like bad and worse.” Agnes’ head sunk. She thought she smelled blood and dried death again, and a faint ringing in her ears threatened to crescendo into a familiar screech. Even the smoke from her cigarette reminded her of the robot’s circuitry shorting out inside of it.

“No, I mean it. The scars aren’t even that bad.” 

_Oh, really._ Maybe it was just how drunk she was, but Cass sounded genuine instead of pitying. It was enough to make Agnes pick her head up again, raising an eyebrow as sudden interest pushed the bad memories from her mind. Cass gesticulated wildly as she talked, the alcohol exaggerating the natural gracelessness of her motions.

“I've seen people get glassed so hard that they look like feral ghouls after getting up, _if_ they get up. Besides, they're _character_ , and I _like_ character. You seem like a tough bitch who can really handle herself, plus I just think they're, uh...hm…” Cass’ eyes darted around the room, from Agnes to the whiskey bottle to the pale woman in the black coat, as if the word she was looking for would be painted somewhere in the barracks. Finally, it came to her, and she jolted up excitedly. “They’re _interesting,_ y’know?”

No, I don’t know, Agnes thought. As if reading her mind, Cass groaned, dragging her hand across her face in exasperation.

“Fuck, that sounds _so_ shitty, I’m sorry. What I mean is that you’ve got a face that I can’t forget, in a good way, and that means a lot given how drunk I am.” She giggled at her own remark, a bubbly, drunken laugh that caught Agnes off-guard. She’d softened a lot since calling her an asshole and telling her to beat it, but a giggle was still surprisingly convivial. It was also contagious, and Agnes suppressed her own laugh at the awkward apology while Cass finished the whiskey. She wiped the corners of her mouth with her sleeve, nearly panting. “Anyway,” she said, stretching the syllable out again, “want more drinks?”

For a moment, Agnes turned away again, shy and deliberative as usual—but for the first time in a long time, a genuine smile crept across her scarred, sallow face. She forgot the pain, the nerves, and her eye for just a second, succumbing to Cass’ contagious giggle after all. The thought tickled her. By God, after all this, they were actually enjoying each other’s company.

“Fuck it,” she grinned. “Sure.”

No reason to leave so soon.


End file.
